Notes and Queries


Query 2308


A Class 47 loco stabled near a junction in summer 1989 but where and what are those gantries for?

[Added 01 March 2023.]

Comments

Query 2308 ... Looks very much like the former Woodhead route ( with the loco facing northeast ). Gantries as erected for the original 1.5 DC electrification of the early 1950's. Uncertain as to the location but Dinting is a possibility - the background industrial premises would then be the large Dinting Vale Printworks.
Could be Guide Bridge. The line in the foreground could be the line up to Stalybridge.
Not Guide Bridge, although I can see the logic behind it - where locos were stabled near the signal box and overlooking the Tame Valley - but there were/are too many electrification masts present but none on the photo.

Definitely not Dinting (nor Mottram not Dewsnap) as it never had extensive sidings like those in the photo.

It looks more like lighting gantries for a carriage sidings on non-electrified lines.

Reconsidering my Dinting suggestion I now agree 47559 Sir Joshua Reynolds is not shown there. Thus lighting gantries are probable. The "extensive sidings" in the foreground look to be the remnants of the throat of a demolished steam shed given apparent semi-burial of three of them in brick coloured rubble with some coal/oil contamination. Likely a western location given its then Bristol allocation.
Not electrification masts; they look more like gantries for handling welded rail. Initially I thought of the former welded rail plant at Castleton near Rochdale, but the background is not right. Does anyone know any other possible welded rails plants?
Could this be the old overhead wired sidings, converted to emu sidings at Hither Green, SE London?
Interesting suggestion of Hither Green but layout of foreground divergent lines plus the background cannot be resolved in that area I'm afraid. Thus completely eliminating the Lewisham railway environment.
Slateford? Carriage maintenance sidings near Edinburgh with playing fields in the background. The gantries definitely look like lighting.
A clue from the "on this day" photos yesterday - could it be Healey Mills yard? Still trying to find other photos that could confirm one way or the other....
I'm afraid it cannot be Healey Mills, which never had any of, or the need for, lower level lighting gantries, given the multiple very tall lighting towers covering the entire area. Incidentally the view cannot be resolved to an image at Slateford either.
Gantries almost identical to these were installed at Bathgate when the EMU storage sidings were built. They are for lighting; not for supporting the electrification equipment


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